


You Say Go Slow

by goddamnitkastlewrites



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddamnitkastlewrites/pseuds/goddamnitkastlewrites
Summary: First posted to goddamnitkastle.tumblr.com on September 15, 2017.The original summary is below:"So I’m in a bit of a creative drought. I’ll be writing for the time being cause these two kids won’t leave me alone but I don’t have it within me right now to make edits and gifs.A thank you to Time After Time (specifically Quietdrive’s cover) for 1. Getting stuck in my head and 2. For inspiring this.Enjoy :)"





	You Say Go Slow

“Wait.”

Karen has a page in mid flip when she looks up. His finger is tapping away and she can see that he’s still putting the pieces together. His jaw clenches. She thinks this is it, that he won’t want to hear anymore. She starts to panic, maybe everything she has found and observed he already knew and noted. He said it himself: he’d been through everything a hundred times.

“Go slow.”

She nods, puts the paper down and repeats it again. She asks him questions, checks in to make sure he’s okay.

He doesn’t stop her again.

…

The clock at  _Nelson and Murdock_  was always for show. There’s a saying that a clock is right twice a day but this clock was an exception. Every time she ever looked at it the time was never right. It was also useless, it didn’t help Matt and herself and Foggy were prone to checking their phones. She’d been meaning to get around to changing the battery but it never came up. Eventually the minute hand permanently hung on the six. As she sat in Ben’s… her office she thought about bringing it in. She probably wouldn’t fix it but she wanted it to live on. Have another home, a second chance. She shoots a text to Foggy.

_**Hey sorry I threw everything away :/  
Also the battery part was ripped out it would’ve been useless.** _

She knows it’s fucking irrational to get upset over a broken clock but her throat tightens up anyway.

…

The GWB can go suck it.

It had been worth the drive to Jersey though, the tip was invaluable and Karen was ready to write the damn article.

She sits behind a truck, a classic rock station playing some 80’s song. She turned it on initially to drown the engines out. Unfortunately the cacophony of sounds was drilling a hole in her head. She rubs her eyes and hits the dashboard.

_**You’re a shining star  
No matter where you are…** _

She sucks in a breath and slams the volume dial. She’s met with a car horn.

…

He leaves her on that bench, heading off to who knows where with what she has found for him. Time moves slowly after that meeting, Ellison keeps asking what’s going on. She knows she can’t live like this, restlessness running through her as she waits for him to contact her again. It’s all she does anymore, wait. Waits for Frank to text her again. Wait for Ben to call, telling her to get out of his office and go find an empty one close by. Wait for Matt to come back, perfectly okay despite a building collapsing on top of him. For Kevin, to unsnap his neck and ask what he’s missed.

She’s on the couch when her phone buzzes.

_**Your boss is texting me, he thinks you’ve been replaced by a zombie. What’s going on?** _

Foggy never fails in putting a smile on her face. It’s a sensation she hasn’t been experiencing lately she realizes.

_**We should probably talk. Josie’s?** _

_**Nah I’ll come over. Liquor cabinet stocked?** _

_**When is it not?** _

She places her phone on the coffee table, gets up to clear her files off the island.

…

_When he dreams, she’s there now._

_Far away but he can pick her out every time. It’d be damn hard to miss her with that blonde hair._

_She’s always walking somewhere and he’s always trying to catch up. He keeps asking her to go slow, in the way he asked that time they went through those Blacksmith files. But she never stops. She gradually gets farther away until she is nothing more than a speck, a blur of blonde and black in a faceless crowd._

_He wakes to rain smacking on the window. The stove light is harsh and yellow as he scoops coffee into a mug. This’ll be the third sleepless night this week. Something inside himself says to call but he will ignore it. He has to, for her sake._

…

He’s dabbing at a cut on her cheek.

“Looks like you won’t need stitches.” He observes.

The question she wants to ask is stinging fiercer than her cheek. The answer is there but she needs to hear it.

“How did you know where I was?”

“Don’t.”

“Why not Frank?”

“Cause I may not be there next time. Don’t think cause we’re talking again you can go and… and…”

His eyes don’t meet hers, instead he bores them into the wall behind her couch.

“I’ll be more careful next time.”

He turns his head. He still won’t meet her eyes, he’s fixated on her cheek. Everything about him is lethal. A grim reaper full of pain, it turns her blood cold.

“I have to go.”

She doesn’t stop him. She never could. She falls behind, watches him go again. It’ll never matter, anything that she says to him. The sooner she accepts that the better off she’ll be.

…

A week later and she’s in a diner with him.

Transcripts strewn between lukewarm coffee and consumed breakfast platters.

“I don’t believe this.” she whispers. Her heart is in her throat. She can feel that soul searing stare of his but she doesn’t dare to look up.

“You read this?”

“Yeah. Is it true?”

“It is.”

Ben once referred to her “past activities”. She knew they’d come back with a ruthless vengeance. She hoped she’d be somewhere farther away when the time came. Or dead. Whichever came first.

“Okay. This is gonna be a shitstorm. But I want to hear it from you. Your side.” He waves at the waitress, who comes by and refills their mugs.

“What?”

They’re locking eyes and she could almost cry. He’s determined, already coming up with a plan. 

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning Page. Just… go slow.”


End file.
